HSK 1+2 grammar recap - necessary?

[Susi12]

Dear Forum,

 

I just took the HSK 2 exam and passed, so I feel like I might start preparing for HSK 3. Until now, I had a really horrible book that had literally NO grammar and my teacher, TBH, sucks at it, too. She is native Chinese and while I like the lessons with her she is just not good at explaining grammar rules, maybe because she chose to become a teacher later in life without any formal education.

 

So really, I basically prepared for HSK 1 by just learning the vocabulary and asking questions about the grammar along the way. Now we switched to the official HSK workbook - and wow, I am so flashed by all the grammar input in there and the grammar practice parts in the workbook as well! Even though I scored ok on the test (95%), I feel like my grammar is very bad because I didn't practice it specifically.

 

Would you recommend a grammar review for HSK 1+2? How would you go about it? I don't feel like buying a workbook and doing all the exercises, it just seems too much looking at the result I got. Do you have any tips for a grammar overview and, more importantly, some resources for practicing the grammar for HSK 1 and 2? Or would you skip it altogether and just jump straight into Level 3 preparation?

 

Thanks for your help

 

[honglam]

I think solid grammar knowledge is important for anyone learning a new language, especially at beginner's level, since it could lead learners back from the wrong way I'd say. Once someone has been used to some wrong sentence structures, it must take more effort to correct it I bet. So a systematic review I bet is significant. But I think it can be done at the same time with learning new things. Maybe you can slow your progress of HSK3 down slightly to spare some language-learning time for a grammar review. Frankly, I don't think it'll take much time to review the grammar of HSK1&2. These grammar point are basic but significant things.

Official grading standard could be a good reference for revision since it's organized linguistically(The problem is, it don't have a description. Actually it just listed the grammar point by level and grammatical category and gave some sentences as example). However it's nearly throughout written in Chinese so I recommend you ask your teach to help you with that. Search for "国际中文教育中文水平等级标准" and you(and your teacher) can get a electronic copy of the grading standard on the official site of Ministry of Education of PRC. I think it won't be hard for a native speaker like your teacher.

BTW, the official standard included vocab list and character list by level as well.

[Johnny-5]

On 2/22/2024 at 10:35 PM, Susi12 said:

Do you have any tips for a grammar overview and, more importantly, some resources for practicing the grammar for HSK 1 and 2? Or would you skip it altogether and just jump straight into Level 3 preparation?

It's all kind of arbitrary anyway, you're not learning anything in HSK1-2 that you aren't going to see a million times in normal usage.

 

What are your goals? If you just want to pass tests then keep on keepin on, but if you're looking to actually use Chinese with real people.... I'd say don't get down on your teacher not knowing the finer points of grammar and try to get some experience with real Chinese. You might try just chatting, you use English and your teacher Chinese. Your teacher can keep it really simple so you can understand, but you'll actually catch on really quick.

[Susi12]

Thanks to you two. The grammar overview posted by you 

On 2/25/2024 at 11:56 PM, honglam said:

"国际中文教育中文水平等级标准

helped, especially as I could find out that there is not to much I missed. To accompany this, I bough the original HSK textbooks as they are fairly cheap to get here in China, even got one used book. I scanned the grammar in there and it is far less than I had assumed.

 

On 3/3/2024 at 2:07 AM, Johnny-5 said:

you're not learning anything in HSK1-2 that you aren't going to see a million times in normal usage.

I think you're absolutely right with this one, I'll just review one or two points that stick out to me and the rest will come with frequent usage.

 

Thanks!